Clinton not only one seeing another Colombia

Frank Bajak and Alexandra Olson - Associated Press

Published 12:00 am, Friday, September 10, 2010

MEXICO CITY — With a blunt remark that grated on Mexicans, Washington's top diplomat merely was echoing a growing concern about the alarming violence and instability being caused by this country's war on drug cartels.

Mexican officials publicly disputed Thursday the declaration by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton the previous day that Mexico is “looking more and more like Colombia looked 20 years ago.”

Clinton's assessment nevertheless is shared by the crime fighters who dismantled Colombia's killer cartels and have been offering Mexican officials, police and prosecutors advice and training for more than two years.

Boy carted off in ambulance after S.A. shooting as relatives scream in anguishSan Antonio Express-News

Critics say President Felipe Calderón's government has been too slow to heed that advice.

Colombia's police director, Gen. Oscar Naranjo, and others who fended off a criminal takeover in the Andean nation believe Mexico is on the cusp of a battle royale in which politicians, police and judges increasingly will be targeted and terror used against civilians — just as Pablo Escobar and his Medellin cocaine cartel did in their country.

Organized crime analyst Edgardo Buscaglia in Mexico says the escalation of cartel violence in this country mirrors Colombia's experience because it is “directly related to the weakness of the state.”

It differs, he says, in that it arises mostly as rival gangs fight to put their own people in key jobs at the provincial and local level — such as mayor, prison warden, police chief.

The cartel assault on Colombia's national government initially was mounted by Escobar himself — atop a single organized crime group — when then-Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara outed him as a narco.

Before police gunned him down in 1993, Escobar and his henchmen waged a decadelong reign of terror. They killed hundreds of police, judges, journalists and politicians, starting with Lara.

The successor Cali cartel kept up Escobar's battle against extradition of traffickers to face U.S. charges — but less violently, choosing instead to buy off much of Colombia's Congress.

Naranjo was chief of police intelligence in the 1990s when Washington lavished aid on his boss, Gen. Rosso Jose Serrano, as he purged and professionalized the force. With close cooperation from Washington — and the passage of extradition, money-laundering and asset forfeiture laws — Colombia dismantled its major cartels.

Among suggestions Naranjo and a brain trust of Colombian crime fighters and allies have offered to the Calderón government:

?Create an elite, incorruptible counterdrug unit in the national police, as Colombia did, and protect delicate narcotics investigations by compartmentalizing information.

?Attack money-laundering and political corruption with legislation that makes it easier to track drug money, freeze narco assets and seize traffickers' property.

?Offer better protection to news organization to encourage more robust and independent reporting on traffickers.

Jorge Castaneda, a former foreign minister, is among Mexicans advocating the creation of a single national police force.

Calderón instead has proposed eliminating all municipal forces and replacing them with a single state force in each of Mexico's 31 states and federal capital district.